books 2005: American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

[supercheesegirl]

That was excellent. Thank you, to all of you in the overwhelming majority who voted for me to read it. LeGuin's The Dispossessed (which was the second-place book) will be the next sf/fantasy that I read, but it might not be the next book I read overall.

I had a fun surprise when I got to the acknowledgements at the end of American Gods--well, I take that back, it wasn't really surprising, just really interesting. He thanks Anna Sunshine Ison for unearthing a bunch of stuff on the west coast Japanese internment camps that never quite fitted into this book. And she was in my poetry class in Greensboro, we got our grad degrees together. I am not at all surprised that she did research for Neil Gaiman. She is a fascinating person and I can't imagine much about her that would really surprise me. I am wondering if Neil Gaiman just walked into the Greensboro Public Library while she was working there (the year before she went to South America on a Fullbright to study beauty pageants) and asked her to look stuff up for him. She is excellent at looking things up. It's not beyond the realm. He also thanks Ian McDowell, who if it's the same Ian McDowell I also knew in Greensboro. Good guy, neat tattoos. Hey, small world.

::edit:: This makes book 36 on my list for the year. I am now nicely averaging seven books per month. If you're tuning in late you can view the full list here. January and February clearly were flukes--obviously I can do much better. March was a banner month at 11 books but was also something of a fluke. I've already made my seven book quota for May, so I'm in good shape.

Comments

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

He also thanks Tori for letting him stay at her home in Florida while writing American Gods. hee. It really is an excellent book. I have a hankering to give it another read. It's been a few years already.

[birdmaddgirl.livejournal.com]

i online-knew anna, from a couple of different tori mailing lists, she used to give us updates as much as she could on her research. it sounded like it was a lot of fun!

[ladydewinter.livejournal.com]

Whee! I am so glad you liked it. Neil Gaiman is amazing. You should read The Sandman at one point - it's the best thing I have ever read in my life.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

Is she Mrs. Hawley, or Jane? :) That's funny!

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

Mrs. Hawley. Tori is married to Mark Hawley.

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

She is a fascinating person. I only wish I had known her better in the time I had with her. Now she's in Mexico!

[supercheesegirl.livejournal.com]

It's on the list!

[tisana.livejournal.com]

I had no idea about his name... Knew she was married and had a kid, but didn't know the husband's name.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

I adore Neil Gaiman, yet find his novels somehow not as fulfilling as his short stories. AG had some great stuff in it--I love the mixing of mythologies and the disguises the gods wore--but other parts, like getting inside the head of the main character and sympathizing with him, didn't work as well as other stuff he's done has.

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

She married her sound engineer. Sometimes we'll see him walking around the venue the day of shows and sometimes we'll talk to him. He's very sweet and English and adorable. Her daughter's name is Tash.